Baily and Lock celebrate double title success at Uni
FIVE players claimed singles and doubles titles over the weekend as Loughborough University Tennis Centre hosted the National Visually Impaired Tennis Championships for the first time.
With 13 singles or double titles contested across three days of enthralling competition, this was the first National Championships to offer four different singles draws for men and for women across four different sight classifications due the rapid increase in the number of visually impaired tennis players in recent years.
Liverpool’s Roy Turnham and Leeds’ Rachel Eve Morgan gained victories in the B1 men’s and women’s singles, for players with the greatest degree of sight loss.
Turnham gained the B1 men’s singles title following a 6-4 win over top seed Nikhil Nair in the final, denying Nair a second singles success in Loughborough this year after he won the B1 singles at the Tennis Foundation’s regional tournament at the same venue in February.
Meanwhile, Morgan dropped one game on her way to the B1 women’s title and later partnered Turnham to deny Nair and Chris Jefferies in the B1 doubles final.
Uckfield’s Chris Baily and Eastbourne’s Callum Lock sealed the B3 men’s singles and B4 men’s singles titles in widely different circumstances before pairing up to win the visually impaired men’s doubles for the loss of just two games.
Lock lost his only games of the weekend in his and Baily’s 6-1 6-1 men’s doubles final victory, having won the B4 men’s singles without dropping a single game. Anstey’s Shane Downing finished runner-up to Lock to provide the National Championships with a measure of local Leicestershire success.
However, Baily needed a deciding match tie-break before defeating Paul Ryb in the B3 men’s singles final for the second successive year.
Manchester’s Amanda Large dominated the B2 women’s singles before partnering Minerva Ainsworth to take the visually impaired women’s doubles, with Carshalton’s Jan Reybnolds becoming a National singles champion for the fifth years in a row in the women’s B3 singles.
James Currie, also from Manchester, and Middlesborough’s Rosine Pybus translated victories at Loughborough’s regional tournament in February into successful National Championships title defences in the men’s B2 and women’s B4 singles events.
For more information about visually impaired tennis contact the Tennis Foundation via info@tennisfoundation.org.uk